What is it with these guys at the Treasury Department? They are dumping a slew of dollar coins on us. Again.
Treasury is releasing the first of a series of dollar coins. By series I mean each coin will carry the mug of a former President. We begin with George Washington. Later this year we get to see Jefferson, Adams and Madison.
After that Treasury will gradually add other presidents to the coins. I’m sure we’ll be standing in line to get the Millard Fillmore and Richard Nixon dollars.
I can’t help but wonder if the Secretary of the Treasury won a couple trainloads of copper in a poker game. And he asked his guys for ideas for disposing of it.
Or maybe Hillary gave him some lessons from her cattle futures days. He applied the lessons to buying copper and nickel futures.
What on earth is the matter with these people?
We already tried dollar coins. We tried, for instance, the Susan B. Anthony dollar. Didn’t like it. That was in the 1970s. We don’t even mint it any more.
We tried the Sacagawea dollar in the 90s. It too was politically correct. It was named for the Shoshone woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark. But we didn’t like it. The dollar. The trip we didn’t mind.
Government guys can be such brilliant marketers. “Well, gentlemen, we have thoroughly tested dollar coins on the American public for thirty years. Slightly over 125 percent of people polled tell us they don’t like them. They won’t use them. They never want to see them again. In fact, 22 percent of people polled used an ancient and honorable Shoshone term with our pollsters. ‘Shonuffitty.’ It translates as “Stuff it, blithering idiots.” Or words to that effect.
“We have taken this message to heart. We have learned our lesson here at Treasury. We have learned to think outside the cage. We have learned to press our ear to the ground to listen to the American people.
“And so ... may I have a few trumpets and drums please? And so, we are introducing the new dollar coin. Did I hear somebody in the back say ‘Shonuffity’? I assure you this new dollar coin will be the same size as the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin and the Sacagawampum dollar coin.”
Now, how can Treasury guys possibly think we are going to fall in love with the new dollar coins? After falling in hate with the Anthony and Shonuffity dollar coins.
Well, duh, they changed the faces on the coins, now didn’t they? Real Guys hated Susan B. Because she stood for feminism. Women hated her hooked nose. And they hated the squawbucks because, well, any woman who would traipse across the country with a couple of men she didn’t know. You KNOW what kind of woman she must have been.
But everybody loves George Washington. And everybody loves John Adams. And so....therefore...
Wait a minute. Whose mug is on your $20 bills? What notable is on the dime in your pocket? Or the penny? Did you get all three right? Did you get any of them right?
I suspect most of us don’t know such things. Because ... Attention Treasury officials! ... we don’t give a tinkers who is on our coins. We only care if we have enough of them. You could put the boobs of sex stars on them. You could put Dale Earnhardt and assorted ball players on them. We don’t care.
If Treasury bothered to do any thinking on this subject they might look at the British pound coin. Popular. Because it is small and chunky. It feels like a nugget, or what we imagine a nugget must feel like. A chunky dollar coin might just work.
Failing something like that, the only way Treasury will get us to use dollar coins is to burn all the dollar bills. I hope the Treasury bureaucrats don’t stand too close to that fire. It might melt the lead in their heads.
From Tom ... as in Morgan.

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